Property owners and operators who use their hotels or other facilities as shelters or dormitories will risk criminal and civil penalties under provisions of a resolution passed by the town board at its regular May meeting.

The resolution is aimed squarely at anyone who harbors migrants and asylum-seekers, many of whom crossed into the United States from Mexico. It amplifies the town’s existing zoning code which forbids the use of “hotels or other temporary resident facilities, including camps, for long-term residential housing.”

The resolution also zeros in on New York City, authorizing the town’s supervisor and attorneys to file civil action against the city should it undertake “to illegally utilize” hotels and other facilities in the town as shelters.

Introducing the resolution, Supervisor Charles Carnes raised the migrant situation that exasperated Newburgh officials as one reason Crawford was compelled to act. On May 11, asylum-seekers arrived at the Crossroads Hotel in the town of Newburgh from New York City. Six days earlier, New York City Mayor Eric Adams contacted town Supervisor Gil Piaquadio to sound him out on a city’s plan to relocate 60 single male asylum-seekers to Newburgh for a period of four months. Piaquadio was cool to the plan for a number of reasons, including safety, lack of services near the hotel, and local zoning laws. Adams assured the supervisor that the city would pay all the expenses associated with housing and feeding the asylum-seekers and he would hold off on the relocation until all the town’s concerns were answered.

On May 9, Orange County Executive Steve Neuhaus issued a State of Emergency in response to New York City’s relocation plans. Duchess, Sullivan and Greene counties, among others, also declared states of emergency, with Greene officials equating the relocations to human trafficking.

When the asylum-seekers arrived at the hotel, the city had yet to answer any of the town’s concerns, Piaquadio said.

The whole episode was magnified by an erroneous report that the hotel had booted homeless veterans from their rooms to make way for the migrants. The report ensnared state Assemblyman Brian Maher, (R-101), whose district includes part of Orange County. Maher, who had helped spread the story, later admitted to the Albany Times Union that he had been deceived and the story was false.

On May 12, the town of Newburgh sued the Crossroads Hotel in Orange County Supreme Court.

Subsequently, Justice Sandra B. Sciortino temporarily blocked the hotel from long-term housing of non-transient guests and ordered the hotel to return the men to “the care, custody and control” of New York City. The town and hotel are scheduled to return to court on June 21.

When Adams revealed his relocation plan, he said the city was forced to act in the absence of any comprehensive plan from the federal and state governments. Hundreds of asylum-seekers are arriving daily in the city. On May 16, Anne Williams-Isom, the city’s deputy mayor of health and human services, said the city was currently caring for 41,500 people, according multiple news reports. Almost all of the city’s efforts to house the migrants no matter the location meet with objections, Newburgh’s being among the most recent.

The first part of Crawford’s resolution, drawn with the help of Orange County, could have been written by Adams himself. It refers to the “national immigration crisis at the border between the United States and Mexico” and notes the “unprecedented and overwhelming numbers of migrants and asylum-seekers” crossing over the border to the United States. It says the federal government has failed or refused to anticipate and react to the exigent and emergent circumstances,” resulting in thousands of migrants entering the U.S.

But then it criticizes the mayor and New York City for failing to adequately address the needs of the migrants, failing to communicate a plan for supervising and caring for the migrants, and failing to provide any funds to Hudson Valley communities to defray the costs of hosting the migrants.

The resolution originally included a paragraph taking the governor of Texas to task for relocating thousands of migrants and asylum-seekers to New York City “rather than address issues presented to its state and/or the federal government.” The Crawford board, all Republicans, deleted the reference. Deputy Supervisor Michael Menendez said, “It’s not his fault,” referring to Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican.

May 18, the same day the board passed the resolution, Abbott announced his state was now busing migrants and asylum-seekers to Denver, expanding a program already busing migrants from the border to Chicago, New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., all cities with Democratic administrations. The first group of migrants were left in a park in downtown Denver, said Abbott, who previously explained that he was just relieving the burden on smaller communities along the border.

CBS News quoted Denver Mayor Michael Hancock as calling Abbott’s busing of migrants a "stunt.”

Copies of Crawford’s resolution were to be sent to the mayor of New York City, the town’s representatives in the New York State Legislature, and Governor Kathy Hochul, as well as every hotel and temporary residence facility in town.